The Phantom Thief felt a strong sense of weightlessness after hearing a loud clanging sound coming from above the elevator.
It felt as if he was standing on a platform that was falling rapidly from the sky.
Phantom Thief quickly realized that the elevator was rapidly dropping, and it wasn't due to a normal malfunction!
He immediately understood the cause of the current situation.
It must have been when the Man-Bat convulsed uncontrollably from the electric shock earlier; its limbs swung wildly, and it accidentally cut the elevator cables!
At this moment, the elevator was around the forty-first floor, and it would take less than ten seconds to plummet to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
This was not a simple one-story drop; it was at least six stories below ground!
The elevator would be destroyed in an instant if it fell from such a high level, and the Phantom Thief inside would not be able to survive.
With this in mind, Phantom Thief immediately jumped up as fast as he could, trying to open the ventilation shaft of the elevator.
In most cases, the elevator's ventilation shaft also served as a maintenance window for workers, with a size large enough for them to enter and exit.
So, the Phantom Thief could use it to exit the elevator and escape from danger.
However, when the Phantom Thief tried to push open the cover, he was shocked to find that it wouldn't move.
"Could it be that the Man-Bat's body is blocking the cover?"
Phantom Thief thought in shock.
The weight of the Man-Bat depended on the person, but among all the Man-Bats he had encountered, even the lightest of them weighed at least two hundred kilograms.
It was clear that the bat pressing on the top of the elevator was a big one because its arm had reached in earlier. Its weight was probably around three hundred kilograms.
Three hundred kilograms!
That much weight could possibly open something. He was playing the role of the Phantom Thief, not Makoto Kyogoku.
Pushing open a window cover with three hundred kilograms of pressure was already more difficult than simply lifting a three hundred kilogram object.
Moreover, jumping to touch the cover required height, and without any foothold on his feet, it was simply impossible to achieve.
Because of the delay of several seconds, the elevator had already fallen to a height of about twenty floors.
Soon, the Phantom Thief would die in this elevator!
In this critical situation, Phantom Thief's mind started spinning rapidly.
At this moment, the elevator was falling at a fast speed, and it was impossible to open the elevator door and escape or insert something to stop it before it fell from one floor to the next.
The only way for the Phantom Thief to survive was to go up.
Although the heavy body of the Man-Bat blocked the window cover and couldn't be pushed open with force, Phantom Thief still had a plan.
If he set explosives on the window cover and detonated them, he could use the explosive impact to lift the entire top of the elevator.
Although this would certainly cause him some harm, he could protect himself with a bulletproof cloak. He would still get injured, but the injuries would be small enough for him to handle.
There were ways to escape unharmed too. He could exchange for some items in the system to help him escape this dangerous situation.
For example, temporary super strength or damage reduction, nullifying gravity, or even short-range teleportation.
Of course, any of these items would require Phantom Thief to empty all his points in the system, and some of them wouldn't even be enough.
At this critical moment, Phantom Thief didn't want to completely spend his savings.
However, the current situation was far from desperate for the Phantom Thief.
With a brief moment of thought, the Phantom Thief made up his mind and decided to use explosives to clear the way.
Perhaps the Man-Bat on top would die in the explosion, but at this moment, Phantom Thief...no, it was Dean who didn't have time to think about that!
According to Lucius, all these Man-Bats in Wayne Tower were part of a team sent by the False Face Society.
The Black Mask had released them, and they were actually violent criminals from the Blackgate Penitentiary!
It could also be because these infected people were ruthless criminals who had already shed blood, so they became even more violent and bloodthirsty after the mutation.
For his own survival, even if it meant potentially killing this Man-Bat with the explosion, Dean wouldn't feel any guilt in his heart.
This was a choice that the 'Phantom Thief' would never make.
But it was a choice that 'Dean' made!
Boom!
As an explosion resounded, Dean was thrown heavily against the elevator's wall due to the impact.
Fortunately, the system's bulletproof cloak had the capacity to absorb a certain amount of impact force, so he didn't receive serious injuries.
Of course, there was still some pain.
The Man-Bat's body was also thrown out by the explosion, falling to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Due to the impact of the explosion, it fell faster than the elevator.
As for the window cover that Dean had struggled to open earlier, it had flown away, who knows where due to the explosion?
Contrary to Dean's expectations, the elevator's material was incredibly tough, and the explosion didn't lift the top of the elevator, but it did cause some slight deformation.
However, these are all small details.
Without hesitation, Dean jumped out of the window at the top of the elevator shaft while holding a Grappling Gun in his hand.
In an instant, a rope connected to the Grappling Gun shot out and attached itself above the elevator shaft.
Like this, Dean hung in the air with the Grappling Gun in the elevator shaft.
Boom!
Then, a much larger explosion with erratic shaking resounded.
The elevator had already reached the bottom.
Looking down at the elevator, which was severely bent and twisted, Dean's tense heart relaxed slightly.
From this height, Dean estimated that he was currently between the sixth and seventh floors. It was a very dangerous height, and just a little bit more, Dean would have been dead.
Dean understood that leaving the elevator didn't mean he was out of danger. On the contrary, there was even greater danger waiting for him.
The sound of the elevator crashing was so loud that the entire Wayne Tower would probably have heard it.
In other words, the twenty or thirty Man-Bats in the building would be attracted to the elevator shaft!
This was not a safe place to stay.
Dean quickly retracted the rope with the Grappling Gun and ascended towards the top of the elevator shaft.
It didn't take long for Dean's fears to come true.
When he reached around the fifty-first floor, the first Man-Bats burst in.
It came from the forty-second floor's elevator shaft; it smashed through the elevator doors!
The Man-Bat immediately spotted Dean above and screeched as it flew towards him.
The height difference between the forty-second and fiftieth floors was too small.
The mutated Man-Bat almost flew to Dean's feet in the blink of an eye, opening its jaws wide and biting towards Dean's right foot.
However, a small object suddenly fell from Dean's right pants leg.
It was dimly lit before it fell, but as it dropped and Dean kicked it, a blinding electric flash burst from it.
It was none other than the high-voltage shocker Dean had used earlier!
The shocker fell straight into the Man-Bat's wide-open mouth.
Roar!
In an instant, the Man-Bat's upward flight suddenly stopped, and it started madly slamming into the walls on both sides of the elevator shaft while continuously making strange cries.
It seemed as if it wanted to replace the pain inside its body with the pain from crashing into the walls.
But it was all in vain.
Soon, the Man-Bat trying to crash into the walls slowed down, and its wings slowly stopped flapping.
It eventually fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Dean knew that this Man-Bat was just near; the real large group was still behind.
The locations of the Man-Bats are different, and they could appear on different floors and in different positions.
They arrive at the elevator shaft at different times and locations.
In other words, they could burst in on any floor at any time. It could be the same floor that Dean is on at that moment.
So, Dean's nerves are even more tense than when he was in the elevator, as he needs to always be on guard in case a Man-Bat appears.
The first Man-Bat didn't disrupt Dean's speed.
He continued to go toward the top of the elevator shaft, quickly reaching a height of over seventy floors, with just over ten floors left to the rooftop.
"I saw the positions of eight Man-Bats from the control room earlier, with five on the floors below me and three on the floors above..."
Dean recalled the known information about the Man-Bat and silently estimated when they might arrive to prepare in advance.
At the same time, he remained vigilant in the elevator shafts of each floor.
Clang!
Suddenly, a loud noise came from below Dean.
At a height of about five floors or below, another Man-Bat smashed through the elevator shaft's door and charged into the elevator shaft.
Dean's face showed no signs of panic because this Man-Bat was one of the eight whose positions he knew.
Dean was expecting it to arrive at this time.
What wasn't in his expectations...
Clang! Clang!
In the next second, two more Man-Bats rushed in from above.
They were more than eleven floors above Dean, and there were two of them!
When the first loud noise arrived, Dean had already finished going up and stopped at the seventy-second floor.
Below him, one Man-Bat stared at him menacingly, and above him, two Man-Bats were eager to take his life.
There was a flanking attack from above and below from three Man-Bats that came together to attack Dean.
Dean didn't know what to do when he had to deal with three Man-Bats at once.
He still had five high-voltage shockers on him.
He made sure that each shocker's battery could only be released once so that he could knock out all of the Man-Bat at once.
There would be very little effect, even if there was a leftover charge.
This meant that Dean could potentially disable a maximum of five Man-Bats with the shockers.
There didn't seem to be a big problem with handling three.
However, the Man-Bats from both above and below were dangerously close to him.
It was especially close to the one below, which was only five floors high, and it could have been a sneak attack.
The Man-Bats above had eleven floors to come to him, so Dean should have enough time to deal with the two below before attacking the one above.
"But the problem is, there are two Man-Bats on top."
The eleventh floor seems far away, but for the Man-Bat, it's only a difference of two or three seconds.
The height of five floors can be approached in less than two seconds.
Dean had to make three counterattacks at the same time in under a second—both above and below.
Can he do it successfully?
No, it's not a matter of whether he can do it or not now; it's a matter of having to do it!
In an instant, Dean made a decision and quickly pulled out a high-voltage shocker from his right hand and threw it down toward the Man-Bat below.
The speed was so fast that a trail of afterimages appeared where his arm passed.
Then he quickly turned his attention towards above; he pulled out two more high-voltage shockers and instantly adjusted their angles before throwing them toward the two Man-Bats above.
Zzzzzap!
The shockers hit all three Man-Bats, which then started to spasm violently.
Dean had achieved what seemed nearly impossible with these counterattacks. However, there was no hint of satisfaction on his face.
The hurry when he was cornered by the three Man-Bats moments ago left him no time to think about anything else.
Now that the primary danger was over, Dean suddenly realized something very dangerous.
The two Man-Bat above him were falling under the influence of gravity. This was a very normal phenomenon and not something worth special attention.
But their free-fall trajectory was directly above Dean!
The two Man-Bats overlapped in mid-air, practically filling the entire elevator shaft, and they were still carrying high-voltage shockers that could instantly kill someone.
Living creatures can conduct electricity!
While Phantom Thief's suit was protected, there were still many exposed parts, such as his face, neck, and wrists... as long as these Man-Bat carrying high-voltage shockers touched him.
Dean was in grave danger!
'No, I have to release the Grappling Gun now and temporarily hide in the elevator shaft below that they just smashed open!'
Dean thought.
At this critical moment, the two Man-Bat that should have been falling directly onto him from above suddenly stopped their drop.
In fact, their bodies strangely bounced up a distance.
This abnormality caught Dean's attention.
When he took a closer look, he saw that the waists and stomachs of the two Man-Bats had somehow been entangled by two ropes, and these ropes extended all the way to the top floor.
It was because the ropes reached their limit just now that the bounce happened.
...
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